Television Review: Arrow, Season 1

The CW's Arrow was written and filmed to have a gritty, urban realism like Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. In fact, there are too many parallels with Batman: when Oliver Queen (a.k.a. the Green Arrow) isn't crimefighting, he's a rich playboy; he has an underground lair; he uses technology, but not guns; it looks like he's about to pick up a young, metrosexual sidekick; his decision to become a crimefighter is informed by the death of a parent; and in the comic books he even has an Arrow-plane (yeah, they went there).

My verdict: I like the series, though I'm a little more intrigued by what is happening during the flashbacks to his time on "the Island" [1] than I am in what's happening in the present in Starling City.[2] However, Malcom Merlyn makes a great villain. Despite the the fact that the political intrigue is engaging, some of the relationships are cheesy and/or unbelievable. For example, considering his betrayal, Oliver's ex-girlfriend warms back up to him far too quickly. And the relationship between Thea and Roy [~Robin] is completely implausible. Of even greater concern, though, is Oliver's modus operandi: Oliver kills a lot of potentially innocent guards working for the bad guys but always gives the bad guys a chance to turn their lives around. And he doesn't even seem to realize that he spends most of his time killing people who aren't necessarily bad and sparing those who definitely are.

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Notes:

[1] No, it's not the island from LOST.

[2] It's unfortunate that they renamed Star City to Starling City since a starling is a trashy bird introduced to North America from Europe. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common Starling.

Image attribution:

Arrow Fletches is by Horace A. Ford and W. Butt (The Theory and Practice of Archery, 1887) and exists in the public domain. It is available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:19th century knowledge archery arrow feathers.jpg.